SAN FRANCISCO / Anarchists protest G-8 -- officer badly hurt

Cicero A. Estrella, Chronicle Staff Writer

Published 4:00 am, Sunday, July 10, 2005

A San Francisco police officer was in serious condition with a head injury and three suspects were in custody Saturday following a demonstration by anarchists who broke windows in the Mission District to protest the gathering of the Group of 8 leaders in Scotland.

Police did not release the name of the officer who was hurt in Friday night's melee. Deputy Police Chief Greg Suhr said Saturday that the officer was in serious but stable condition with brain swelling at San Francisco General Hospital. He has developed a blood clot, which doctors hope to dissolve before he is released, Suhr said.

The department's spokeswoman, Maria Oropeza, said the officer and his partner were driving on 23rd Street in response to a vandalism call when protesters threw a mattress underneath their patrol car.

"They got out to apprehend the suspects, at which point they were surrounded by a crowd," Oropeza said. "One of the officers was struck on the head by an unidentified object."

They were being held on suspicion of attempted lynching, malicious mischief, battery to a police officer, aggravated assault on a police officer with a deadly weapon and willful resistance to a police officer that results in serious bodily injury.

In addition, Tarlow was held on suspicion of wearing a disguise for the purpose of escaping discovery or identification with a public offense. Earnst was also suspected of removing a weapon other than a firearm from an officer, and the unidentified man was suspected of inciting a riot.

A posting on a Web site used by the organizers of Friday's protest said, "The legal team is working on getting (the suspects) attorneys and getting them released! There will be a meeting to organize support for them." The meeting is scheduled for this morning.

The protest was one of many from around the world in response to the summit in Scotland by leaders of wealthy nations -- the United States, Canada, France, Germany, Italy, Japan, Russia and the United Kingdom. Representatives from China, India, South Africa, Brazil and Mexico also attended.

The San Francisco protest was billed as the "West Coast Anti-Capitalist Convergence and March against the G-8." Protesters broke windows and glass doors at two Wells Fargo Bank locations, a Kentucky Fried Chicken restaurant and a shoe store. Red anarchy signs were spray-painted on sidewalks and windows.

Mike Ayesh, manager and co-owner of the Kentucky Fried Chicken in the 1000 block of Valencia Street, said a masked protester threw a hammer through a front window about 9:30 p.m.

Henry Williams, manager of Shoe Biz on the 800 block of Valencia, estimated the cost to replace a cracked 6-foot-by-9-foot window at $1,600.

"I don't know why they targeted the store," Williams said. "We're a small family-owned business, not a big corporation."

By early afternoon, most of the damage from the protest had been fixed or patched up. Newsstand boxes turned over at a number of intersections on Valencia Street had been returned to the sidewalks. Cracked windows had either been replaced or boarded up.

Mission District resident Mike Voight said he didn't know what the demonstration was about. When informed of the reason, he said he was surprised that protesters picked his neighborhood.

"It's so out of context," he said. "Bartlett and 23rd Street is not the place I would chose" to protest the G-8 summit.